Press release DjustConnect celebrates its fifth birthday with strong growth

Flemish agrifood data sharing platform become indispensable in digital acceleration

During the agricultural fair Agriflanders 2025, ILVO unpacks with solid growth figures of DjustConnect, the neutral data sharing platform for the agrifood sector, which exists 5 years this year.

With more than 3,000 registered farmers and horticulturists, who can use the platform for free, 56 data connections and 17 applications, it becomes clear that DjustConnect plays an important role in the digitization of the sector.

DjustConnect is becoming well established in the agri-food sector. Users are experiencing the added value and user-friendliness. "Another series of technological extensions are planned for the coming years," says coordinator Stephanie Van Weyenberg (ILVO).

DjustConnect is a data-sharing platform that gives farmers and horticulturists back control of their data. They decide at any time which application can (still) access certain data. The platform is run and managed by ILVO.

Five years old, a strong adult

Building a reliable and smoothly functioning data sharing system, in compliance with European regulations, from scratch was a considerable challenge. In 2020, DjustConnect started with one farmer and the support of 5 cooperatives: Boerenbond, Milcobel, DGZ, Arvesta and CRV. Today it is a thriving platform, with many Flemish users, and with an exemplary role in Europe.

In recent years, farmers and horticulturists received an average of 9 requests to share their data on their personal DjustConnect dashboard. Very often it is about administrative simplification, which makes the number of consenting farmers high, once they are registered.

The connection to digital parcel information (Agriculture and Marine Fisheries Agency) remains the most popular. Applications that provide quick access to certificates, such as the app keuring spuittechniek, are gaining a lot of importance. A third growing group concerns everything to do with climate impact and sustainability. Applications related to sustainable soil and water management, such as the soil passport, rank fourth.

The majority of member farms are active in arable farming and dairy farming. Collaborations with pig farming and even sea fishing are in the pipeline.

User-friendly and administratively simple

A series of user tests were organized together with Ferm voor Agravrouwen and Odissee Hogeschool as part of the Flemish project Digislim, in order to optimize the ease of use of DjustConnect. Farmers were asked what could be better or more logical.

Every phone call that comes in through DjustConnect's permanent help desk is also an opportunity for ILVO to set up the system even more intuitively.

"More than 100 registrations a month is a regular occurrence lately. That's a solid test for DjustConnect and the support team. The reception of the newcomers is going well," says Eva Maes of ILVO.

Additional tech opportunities coming in 2025 and beyond

Group dashboards

Soon it will be possible for farmers and growers to manage their data in groups. DjustConnect is building an option that allows a farmer to agree to share specific data with a group, while at the same time being able to see the data of the other group members. A first application for the group dashboard revolves around level-controlled drainage. Level management is a landscape-level issue, with stakeholders who must be able to respond collectively to weather changes and needs in their catchment area. All group members are going to see the current status of the water system in a group app. That relies on data from sensors from participating farmers, desired water table levels on participating plots and weather data. Together, the group of farmers can monitor the impact of their management on each other's plots and on the entire water system in the basin. This case is being developed in the SKAD research project, funded by the Agency for Agriculture and Marine Fisheries.

Data vaults

The creation of data vaults solves potential data sharing dilemmas. On the one hand, the farmer or horticulturist very much wants advice from algorithm calculations, but on the other hand, this sometimes requires employing company-sensitive data. For example, to calculate the carbon footprint of some end product, the algorithm needs to find out which (and how much) of the raw materials and products used affect the footprint. Suppose one of the producers considers the composition of its product or raw material as sensitive information (a secret recipe...) , the solution is for the algorithm to perform the calculation in the data vault via federated AI. The farm-sensitive data stays in the vault and does not even leave the farm.

More connection techniques

Technical developments in data sharing move fast. Poor interoperability between different technical alternatives means that companies would have to implement multiple technologies to share data throughout the chain. DjustConnect wants to provide maximum support to companies by expanding the number of connection possibilities. Technically, this includes new connectors and converters for interoperability, additional identification and login modules, options to publish data machine-readable in external data marketplaces, etc. Each company in a chain will eventually be able to stick to its own technology, and still connect. It is DjustConnect that provides the translation. With an investment of over €600,000, ILVO and EFRO are preparing this interoperable future. DjustConnect thus becomes a genuine Flemish Agrifood dataspace.

Experimental environment for new companies

Thanks to the Data Economics research project (Coock+ project funded by Vlaio), ILVO is building a number of practice boxes, with guidance. Farms and companies can test which technology best suits their digital strategy, before making (too) expensive internal adjustments to integrate into the data economy.

Conclusion

DjustConnect is at the forefront of the pack of data sharing platforms in Flanders and Europe as a catalyst of the data economy. The platform brings together leading knowledge on digital strategy, technology and data regulation with deep insight into agricultural and food processes.